For this piece, we set out to sample as many different energy gels as possible. The goal was to produce tasting notes, similar to what one might find for different vintages of wine, or coffee beans of specific origin. It is, of course, a little different to sample sweet and sticky gels than either coffee or wine, but we tried to enjoy the process as much as we could.
Of the gels we tasted, some are more in the “real food” camp, while others are decidedly “sports science.” Both have benefits depending on when and how you utilize them, though typically the easier to eat the gel is, the better it is suited to harder efforts or race scenarios. Some athletes appreciate a variety of flavors to keep things fresh, while others choose the most neutral or inoffensive option to get in fuel quickly and keep competing.
If you plan to use gels in racing scenarios, I would strongly recommend trying a few different options and testing them out during training sessions to see how your body reacts. Our test was focused primarily on flavor and texture, and is not meant to replicate real-world, high-effort consumption.
Alas, not all of the brands we reached out to provided test products, but we tried to gather as many different options here as we could.
The testing Process
Of the sample gels we received, we selected the two most intriguing flavors from each brand (note: some only make a single flavor). We then tasted them one at a time, eating apple slices as a palate cleanser in between. Each sample was evaluated on flavor, stickiness, mouthfeel, sweetness, and aftertaste. We also jotted down any additional impressions that we had about each, and, as a thought exercise, contemplated the location and/or scenario in which we would ideally consume each gel. Our testers are longtime athletes who have eaten many, many gels throughout the course of years of training and racing.
Energy Gels Tested (in no particular order)
Website: maurten.com
Flavor: Gel 100
Size: 40 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: If you spend enough time with toddlers at wading pools, eventually you’ll witness some hapless parent sending their progeny in wearing a regular (non-swimming specific) diaper. The diaper will then swell up to breathtaking size, before bursting and filling the wading pool with super-absorbent goo. Maurten’s Gel 100 (no flavor listed) has a similar consistency. Upon discovering this, I was initially taken aback, but quickly bypassed all additional emotions and ended up at delighted. I had no idea I would enjoy a gel textured like this, but man is it delicious. Sweet and wonderfully chewy, it’s perfect in every way. Maurten also offers the same gel in a larger size, or with caffeine, for those inclined.
Pairs with: Water
Website: humagel.com
Flavor: Mangoes
Size: 42 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: There are no two ways about it: Huma’s mango-flavored gel looks like mango chutney and tastes like mango chutney. Depending on whether or not you have a predilection for chutney, this may or may not be a good thing. Heavy sweetness, but that’s to be expected with mangoes, and it’s both delicious and nutritious. Stickiness is mild to medium; mouthfeel is gentle. It would be delightful to eat one of these while watching a sunset on the summit of a granite-capped mountain.
Pairs with: Water
Website: humagel.com
Flavor: Blueberries
Size/calories: 42 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: Huma’s Blueberries flavor (and I appreciate the plurals as part of the naming convention) tastes like thick blueberry syrup. Based on the packaging, which highlights chia as an ingredient, I was expecting a chia-puddingesque sludge (to be clear, I would be alright with this), but Huma blends the chia into a butter that is easy to eat and tastes great. It’s smooth and fruity and not at all sticky. I can imagine myself snacking on one of these while riding in view of the Atlantic Ocean and periodically stopping to eat sun-ripened blueberries alongside the road.
Pairs with: Water
Website: scienceinsport.com
Flavor: Apple
Size: 60 mL, 158 cal
Tasting notes: Upon visual inspection, the texture of SiS’s Apple gel appears eerily like rubber cement. Aroma-wise, it gives off strong Jolly Rancher vibes. Flavor is similarly candy-like with intense sweetness, which should be a nice pick-me-up during a long day in the saddle. Mouthfeel is smooth, with a slightly bitter apple finish. Likely best enjoyed after several hours in a paceline, fully on the rivet. This stuff is clearly rocket fuel.
Pairs with: Water
Website: scienceinsport.com
Flavor: Fruit Salad
Size: 60 mL, 87 cal
Tasting notes: The clear, thin liquid of SiS’s Fruit Salad flavor has a mild, berry-forward profile. It’s sweet, but not too sticky. Fruit Salad is a little bit ambiguous for my tastes—which fruits exactly? Did SIS just pour the remnants of a tinned fruit salad into packaging? We’ll never know. The flavor lingers, and it’s decidedly not an ordinary food taste. SiS gels are designed to be eaten without water, though this one could use some to chase it down.
Pairs with: Water
Website: myspringenergy.com
Flavor: Orange
Size: 53 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: Texture is thin, and initial flavor is pleasant, though the appearance isn’t particularly appetizing. I suppose there’s a reason you’re supposed to eat gels directly from the package. Sweetness index is low, as is stickiness. Flavor is best described as “weak applesauce with an orangey zest”. Spring Energy gels tend very much toward the real food end of the spectrum, but this one is also very easy to eat and extremely mild on the stomach. A winner.
Pairs with: Water
Website: myspringenergy.com
Flavor: Chocolate Heaven
Size: 54 g, 180 calories
Tasting notes: This one’s name promises a lot: it had better be good when the word heaven is evoked. Perhaps Chocolate Cherry would have been more apt. Cherry flavor is the dominant one, while the chocolate takes a bit of a backseat. Texture is slightly gritty—this is clearly food and requires some chewing. It reminds me a bit of a larabar, which shares several of the same ingredients. Best enjoyed on a longer ride when you want something a little more substantial to eat.
Pairs with: Water
Website: carbsfuel.com
Flavor: Original Energy Gel (currently the only flavor Carbs Fuel makes)
Size: 55 mL, 200 calories
Tasting notes: The name “Carbs Fuel” makes it pretty clear about what to expect here. Should we anticipate a future ketogenic product called “Fats Fuel” made of shelf-stable bacon grease? Hopefully not. Carbs Fuel’s Original flavor has an unusual, but not unpalatable scent. The flavor is mild and not overly sweet, and while it does have an aftertaste, it’s hard to pin down what exactly that taste is. These seem like a great option for people who want calories without too much flavor faffing about. Best eaten on a long ride, many hours deep when nothing else is feeling good in your stomach.
Pairs with: Water
Website: firstendurance.com
Flavor: Wild Berry
Size: 44 g, 110 calories
Tasting notes: First Endurance’s Wild Berry flavor is berry-forward, but not especially wild; mild berry might be more accurate. But it’s nice and smooth and relatively thin. It is quite sweet. The flavor works well without drawing too much attention to itself, making for a somewhat neutral gel that is easy to eat. It has a vaguely chemical-flavored aftertaste. This one would make a nice snack on a late spring training ride through the winding roads of an apple blossom-filled valley.
Pairs with: Water
Website: firstendurance.com
Flavor: Kona Mocha
Size: 44 g, 110 calories
Tasting notes: Toffee in color, coffee in aroma. The scent is intriguing, and the flavor is quite yummy, assuming you like coffee. Kona Mocha seems to be a better vehicle for First Endurance’s proprietary blend than Wild Berry. It’s also sweet but well balanced, and is a little stickier than others due to the sweetness. Perfect for those cool dawn patrol rides, just as the sun starts to peek over the horizon.
Pairs with: Water
Website: guenergy.com
Flavor: Cola
Size: 30 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: Visually reminiscent of two-part epoxy. Again, there’s a reason you’re not supposed to look at this stuff. The smell is fantastic though: like an extra piney flat Coke. Stickiness is extreme, as is viscosity. Flavor is decidedly cola-esque, though a little too chemically for me. The aftertaste lingers as well. These would ideally be consumed mid-ride at an old-timey lunch counter on a hot summer day along with a BLT. I appreciate Gu trying to do something fun here. For people who crave cold soda on a ride, these’ll be right up your alley.
Pairs with: Water
Website: guenergy.com
Flavor: Campfire S’mores
Size: 32 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: Everybody loves s’mores, right? And this flavor of Gu actually looks tasty. It has a tempting caramel color and a mouthwatering marshmallow scent. Flavor is very sweet, but slightly artificial tasting. It couldn’t be stickier. It’s fairly thick and slightly chewable and you can almost feel the energy going into your muscles. This flavor would be ideal on a wet and cold ride when you need something to remind you of the warmth of a campfire, or vaguely, of happiness.
Pairs with: Water
Website: honeystinger.com
Flavor: Gold (Original)
Size: 31 g, 90 calories
Tasting notes: Honey Stinger’s Gold is pleasantly golden (as one would hope) and sparkles with trapped air bubbles. Sweetness is acute, but it works, and most of the flavor is just sweetness, but honey is tasty in any form. Stickiness is off the charts. It does have a slightly funky aftertaste, which isn’t nearly as smooth as the initial flavor. One of these would be perfect to snack on while riding gravel bikes through the Hundred Acre Wood looking for Heffalumps.
Pairs with: Water
Website: honeystinger.com
Flavor: Fruit Smoothie
Size: 31 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: The Fruit Smoothie flavor looks like lightly colored honey, with a slightly corn-syrup-esque appearance. The honey flavor is delicious, though the fruit accent is a little bit too artificial for me. I wish to know more about the contents of this “fruit smoothie.” Nevertheless, it goes down smoothly, and the aftertaste is mild. This one would be nice to eat while riding champagne gravel in between mud season and dust season (provided you live somewhere with seasons).
Pairs with: Water
Website: precisionhydration.com
Flavor: Original (Precision Fuel’s only flavor)
Size: 50 g, 120 calories
Tasting notes: Like Carbs Fuel, you sort of know what to expect with this one based on the name. Original is currently Precision Fuel’s only flavor, and it’s a good one. Visually it’s clear, and looks more akin to a cleaning product than food, but has no additional shortcomings. It’s not too sweet or sticky, and is extremely easy to eat. The mild flavor reminds me a little bit of chamomile tea. It has a little bit of body to it, like Maurten’s gel. I’m a fan.
Pairs with: Water
Website: ucan.co
Flavor: Pineapple
Size: 53 g, 70 calories
Tasting notes: UCAN’s Pineapple flavor looks like lotion, and the flavor is somewhat in the same vein. It’s not bad per se, it’s just…different. Apparently Ucan makes these gels without sugar, which makes sense. Instead it uses some kind of cornstarch mixture. Sweetness and stickiness are minimal and the pineapple flavor is mild, with a slightly chalky finish. It has unmistakable pina colada vibes, but again, lotion-y. Pineapple might not be the best flavor to showcase this particular gel. It does seem like it would be easy on the stomach, however.
Pairs with: Water
Website: ucan.co
Flavor: Unflavored
Size: 53 g, 70 calories
Tasting notes: Unflavored seems a bold move on UCAN’s part. The lotion-y appearance and texture are the same as in pineapple flavor, though the pineapple flavoring is no more. Instead there’s a hint of rubber glove. It’s also slightly gritty, though we couldn’t figure out why. I was reminded of when, at the dentist, they try to rinse out the fluoride with the suction device and some remains. This one also seems like it would be easy on your stomach at least—no need to wait 30 minutes before eating.
Pairs with: Water
Website: muirenergy.com
Flavor: Red Raspberry
Size: 30 g, 110 calories
Tasting notes: Muir’s Red Raspberry gel is sweet, sticky and very thick. You can even hold it upside down on a spoon: we tried! The flavor is akin to a molasses-y jam, with some associated grittiness. Both raspberry and molasses flavors linger on the palate. One of our testers described it as “healthy tasting,” and it probably tastes like real food because it is. Ideal location for consumption: mid-hike-a-bike on an epic bikepacking trip. Stop and smell the flowers and eat some jam!
Pairs with: Water; peanut butter
Website: muirenergy.com
Flavor: Passion Fruit Pineapple Bananas
Size: 30 g, 105 calories
Tasting notes: This stuff is thick and sticky. There’s a lot going on here: the passion fruit scent is both very strong and very distinctive and it has trouble morphing into the molasses-heavy flavor. This one tastes “healthy” too, but the mix of flavors doesn’t go quite as well together. Muir, if you’re reading this, how about a pumpkin pie flavor with cinnamon and extra nutmeg? Call me.
Pairs with: Water
Website: untapped.cc
Flavor: Salted Cocoa
Size: 39 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: UnTapped looks exactly like maple syrup, which makes sense, because that’s what it is. Sweetness is bright and sharp, and not at all cloying. The flavor profile is decidedly maple-forward, and it’s quite sticky, though the texture is thin. Mouthfeel is excellent: smooth and soft, with a pleasant aftertaste. The salted cocoa flavor doesn’t dominate, instead it’s a gentle complement to the maple flavor without overpowering it. I could eat a lot of these! Best consumed in the mountains.
Pairs with: Water; waffles
Website: untapped.cc
Flavor: Salted Citrus
Size: 40 g, 100 calories
Tasting notes: UnTapped’s salted citrus flavor is smooth and thin. This stuff is tasty too! The citrus flavor pairs well with the sweetness of the maple syrup, and is vaguely reminiscent of lemon curd. It has a mild finish. The lack of viscosity paired with the packaging design make it a little hard to consume quickly. It would be delightful to eat mid way through a warm summer ride while sitting in an Adirondack chair outside a log cabin, perhaps in a National Forest?
Pairs with: Water
Conclusion
Well, there you have it: a giant pile of gels tasted and remarked upon and one nauseous tester. We certainly each have our own preferences, but we tried to find things that we agreed upon about each one. We found that it’s easy to focus on flavor, but texture has just as much of an impact on how enjoyable these gels are to eat. The packaging too makes a difference in how easy it is to eat each gel. We discussed trying to create some sort of matrix to rate the different packages, but it got too complicated for us, so we just focused on tasting them. As mentioned above, we suggest trying several different kinds for yourself. Eat them at the start of rides and at the end of rides, and when you’re going hard and going easy. You may find you prefer certain ones for each of these scenarios. When in doubt, eat a banana.
